Original Article: https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/yI4arm9P9nJwE3RMSUW-5Q
Original Author: 杨晋亚
Translator’s note: The original author is part of Yuli Studio, this article is published in Yuli Studio’s Weixin Official Account on 23 Apr 2021 as a part of “Behind the Screens” Volume 640.
On 22 Apr, “A Dream Like A Dream” Wuhan Charity show was still in the midst, countless related topics were already on Weibo Hot Search.
This is probably the hottest play on the internet till date.
A big intellectual property that lasted for 21 years, and now with the addition of the hottest celebrity, debuted for the first time as a Charity Show in honor of the heroes of the pandemic last year, “A Dream Like A Dream” contained stories on stage and backstage.
Before the official start of the play, Yuli Studio walked into the backstage of “A Dream Like A Dream”, and entered the dream in advance.
Celebrity Cast
On 19 Apr noon, 15 minutes before the first full dress rehearsal for “A Dream Like A Dream”, there were not much audiences, they were all in the lotus pond seats.
Overall producer Wang Keran was suddenly notified that there was someone recording secretly, he immediately called the executive producer Da Shan to check, who had already expressed multiple times that audiences were not the take pictures. Wang Keran face turned gloomy, loudly accused Da Shan of incompetency, stood up, “Trusted friends who are currently seated, I hope that everyone would protect the actors, stop filming.”
Afterwards Wang Keran told us, his anger then was actually “for show”, that situation needed him to make a stand, scold Da Shan so as to alert everyone else, “I needed to kill two birds with one stone, control the scene, protect the actors.”
Xu Qing, Xiao Zhan, Zhang Liang, Huang Lu… the addition of many celebrity actors, caused the interest in “A Dream Like A Dream” to increase.
Protecting his actors, was something that Wang Keran always did ever since he built this group.
Yanghua Theatre and Baoli Theatrical Center collaborated and did some massive and intricate work, in order to ensure that protection project was as per usual, “The theaters put in a lot, the meager profits that this project is giving them, can’t completely cover their massive investment.”
Wang Keran also helped to block countless signature and photograph requests for Xiao Zhan, his good friend had came from afar to Wuhan just for a photograph with Xiao Zhan, but Wang Keran did not agree, “I promised a clean creative environment for my actors.”
The “A Dream Like A Dream” group tried their best to give all the actors an equal, harmonious creative environment, and in here, there is no celebrity actor Xiao Zhan, only Patient No. 5 B.
In the backstage of the Wuhan Qintai Theatre, the plaque on the door of Xiao Zhan’s resting room was not labelled “Xiao Zhan”, but “No. 5”.
Director Chen Limei and Zhang Rui said that the group did not treat Xiao Zhan specially as a celebrity; Actress Huang Lu, who portrayed the role Jiang Hong, had the most scenes with Xiao Zhan, she said that everyone was just actors.
Privately, Xiao Zhan would treat Huang Lu fruits, as well as recommend good motives to her, Huang Lu said, working with Xiao Zhan was not much different from working with other partners, the only difference was that there were suddenly a lot of Xiao Zhan fans leaving messages on her Weibo, most of them were messages of encouragement and support.
During the very initial rehearsals, the director closed Huang Lu and Xiao Zhan into a small practice room, in order to cultivate tacit understanding.
“When we were rehearsing the French portion of the play, I knew he was from Chongqing, I would suddenly use French translated to Wuhan dialect to talk to him, what d’ya wanna eat what d’ya wanna eat, and then he would suddenly reply me in Chongqing dialect.”
Huang Lu remembered, when Xiao Zhan entered the group, he had already memorized all of his lines, the tacit understanding between them were built up within 3 or 4 days, and on the details of the performance, they would also inspire each other.
For example, the biggest reaction from the audience in the Wuhan show was the scene in the Parisian apartment, actually contained Xiao Zhan’s designs, when they spoke the lines “Monday Wednesday Friday Tuesday Thursday Saturday and Sunday”, Xiao Zhan suggested that the two of them would lean their heads on each other, so as to give a better effect.
When the two of them were conversing in comedic Japanese scene, there were traces of the old version of the play, but there were new creativity as well, “Pikachu” was from the old version, whereas “sleeping” was an idea that Xiao Zhan came up with.
The duration for “A Dream Like A Dream” was long, the lines voluminous, there was once during rehearsal, one of the actors had a sudden breakage and his lines became more and more scattered, voice lower and lower, that day Director Chen Limei gave him a stern talking to, but in the director’s memory, this problem never occurred to Xiao Zhan.
“Xiao Zhan was very serious, we could all feel that, every night after he went back, he definitely thought through his scenes once more, so that he would not make this kind of mistake.”
Xiao Zhan expressed that his familiarity with the lines had gone to the state that he could say it “whenever”, he was more focused on the “current feeling and the chemistry with his partners.”
Xiao Zhan was very strict with his own expectations, on the 19th after the first full dress rehearsal, there were many audiences who gave his performance good reviews, but he said, “I’m not quite satisfied with today, it wasn’t as good as yesterday.” Although the audiences did not spot any problems with the lines from the scene “Monday Wednesday Friday Tuesday Thursday Saturday and Sunday”, but after the performance ended, Xiao Zhan himself felt that there were some slight flaws.
The lotus pond seats in “A Dream Like A Dream” to Xiao Zhan was a challenge, it made it easy for him to lose concentration, and once you had lost it, it would be easy for the scene to scatter, he described, “the feeling in concerts is that you need to interact simultaneously, plays to me meant that I need to make myself lonely”, so he needed to make sure he could ignore the audiences.
Wang Keran invited theater critics to view the play for the 19th’s full dress rehearsal, after the upper half ended, they were exclaiming in praise of Xiao Zhan’s acting, Wang Keran also proudly recommended this newly found actor to people around him: “He had a different layer of creativity process, the first day we’ve finished the script, he surprised me onstage the second day, it was green but came with a lot of accurate instincts. He constructed the character to be intricate and abundant, but yet layered, not just emotional scenes, everyone could burst into emotions, but he was intricate, lively and entertaining, he conveyed the soul of the character, his sense of pace was this good.”
The story of “A Dream Like A Dream” and Xiao Zhan had to begin with the Cao Yu 110 Anniversary Special Event last year.
In 2019, Wang Keran heard of Xiao Zhan’s name, but he quickly forgot about it. “Then I was in Wuxi, there was a large excited crowd of people, said that the hottest actor, Xiao Zhan, was in there.”
Until 2020, a psychiatrist friend told Wang Keran, to take note of this actor Xiao Zhan.
“Before then I was an older person, I’ve always picked actors above 35, but after the psychiatrist finished talking, I started subconsciously noticing this person, and then I found out that this person was really interesting.
How interesting? There were a lot of people attacking him, I thought I’d understand what these attacks were, I found out that these people were a contradiction of the most realistic things and most hypocritical things, this era’s idols were different from 5 years ago, they are now placed on a pedestal as a symbol, as something to be fought over or stepped upon. Via Xiao Zhan I noticed the new pulse in the development of society, understood this movement, art should be something that is most compatible with the times, my personal view on plays is just like this, plays should be the current drama action of this moment, and the emotional relationship of the people here and now.”
The commemoration event for Cao Yu, Wang Keran needed to find a young guest who could have a conversation with Wan Fang, a colleague suggested Xiao Zhan, Wang Keran suddenly realized, this was perfect, “The complexity on Xiao Zhan would fully represent the complexity of plays.”
The first time he met Xiao Zhan, Wang Keran captured the mysterious sense of fate behind his back, but yet he also gave a sense of youthful obtrusiveness, gentle and warm. Wang Keran gave Xiao Zhan a list of books and asked him to go back and read, after which Xiao Zhan finished the books in a few days, even wrote some 10 over questions to Wan Fang, the questions were simple but deep, and moved Wang Keran.
On the Cao Yu Commemoration Event, Wang Keran studied Xiao Zhan, and found that his sense of stage was fantastic, and immediately invited him to join “A Dream Like A Dream”.
To Wang Keran, the similarity between Xiao Zhan and Patient No. 5 was that they were both trapped in the uncertainties of fate.
Xiao Zhan’s portrayal of Patient No. 5 gave Wang Keran a pleasant surprise, as to whether he would continue as Patient No. 5 after this year’s shows, they had not spoken about it, but Wang Keran felt that “A Dream Like A Dream” already gave Xiao Zhan some rewards, “I feel that via this play, he can prove that he is a good actor, I feel that ‘A Dream Like A Dream’ gave him a power.”
Entering the Dream Again
Not only Xiao Zhan was a new addition, the Yanghua version of “A Dream Like A Dream” had almost a brand new cast.
Zhang Liang and Yanghua had collaborated for 2 plays, they were old friends; Huang Lu was recommended by Xu Qing, she was also the only actress that was confirmed without meeting Wang Keran.
Director Zhang Rui was in-charged of arranging actors, but because of the pandemic, the Taiwanese actress who was supposed to play the role of the wife could not arrive, another actress had to take on this role. “A Dream Like A Dream” had a total of 31 actors and actresses, many times one would take on multiple roles, any adjustment of actors would have big ramifications.
Zhang Rui created many versions of the casting chart, “This casting chart was an intricate process, move an actor, we might need to reallocate every scene, whether they could make the scene in time, whether they were suitable, reasonable, I’m so frustrated my hair’s dropping.”
Starting from 2013 when “A Dream Like A Dream” premiered in Mainland China, Director Chen Limei and Zhang Rui grew with this play for 9 years. Chen Lipai previously also handled the role of Stage Executive, Zhang Rui was with the crew everyday, there were the two who were most familiar with “A Dream Like A Dream”.
In their memory, the first rehearsal for 2013 lasted 3+ months, after which if there were not much changes with the actors, repeat rehearsals would last 1 week. Some years they had to change an actor, but yet they did not give sufficient rehearsal time and almost drove the actor insane, “Because the crowd actor had to act as multiple roles, the management of every role was complex, he needed to remember his position, his clothes, and he had to depend on himself, there would be no one backstage to inform him, he had to take care of himself.”
This year, more than half of the cast was changed, theoretically they needed one and a half months, but to gather 31 actors to rehearse at the same time was not easy, the group merely squeezed out 17 days for practice time.
Practice time started officially from 9 Mar, the group settled in Hebei Tangshan, the time was tight, the mission was heavy.
Lai Shengchuan, who was faraway in Taiwan, gave instructions via video conferencing to the actors, to help answer their questions. Wang Keran, Chen Limei and Zhang Rui handled the task of direction.
Wang Keran mainly handled the mini classes to the new actors to the group, every actor had different classes to attend.
Huang Lu was a movie actress, her method for lines was to say to herself, but “A Dream Like A Dream” was to say them to 1200 audiences, Wang Keran gave her a training method, “He made me rehearse only with Xiao Zhan, each of us would stand at the furthest corner, but we must be able to hear each other’s lines, that is we needed to get used to speaking loudly, I felt that this method was actually quite crucial.”
When he first entered the group, Zhang Liang was tortured by the role of the Baron for 3 days, he totally could not find the sensation, Wang Keran gave him 3 days of progressive classes. The first class was to control the micro expressions and movements, “For example, the first day I reached Tianxian Court, he requested that when I did gestures, my hands could not be higher than my chest, when we normally spoke my palm would face up, but he said that the Baron could not have a moment where his palm was facing up, his palm would forever be facing down.”
The second class was culture class, discussing European culture, politics and artistic background, so as to understand the motives behind Baron’s actions. “Baron would not let Xianglan draw abstract art, made her start from still life, it actually had political connotations. Classical realism represented calm and control, whereas abstraction and symbolism, etc, developed from the lowest of the masses, represented the destruction to order, Baron hoped from the bottom of his heart that Xianglan would live with him, if you liked something he didn’t like, that represented betrayal to Baron, that’s where the cracks in their relationship started.”
Chen Limei and Zhang Rui understood every detail of “A Dream Like A Dream”, when the actors gave any small questions, they would immediately solve them.
For example, how to swiftly get into positions, what to wear after changing out, both directors could immediately give the correct answer, “We found that this time round that one of the new actors was slow in moving, he would say he could not make it, I would say you definitely could make it, you tell me why you couldn’t make it, I would know where you did wrong. He said it was very dark and he couldn’t find his bag, and he needed to take the gun from 2nd floor to the 1st floor, I said there’s another prop gun downstairs, you don’t have to carry it down, he said he didn’t know. We actually spoke to him after observing him for a few days, because we knew that the 2nd floor was very dark, we definitely had to ensure the safety of our actors first.”
The time left for the directors was not much, rehearsal, costume, positions, etc, all had to be done simultaneously, the volume of “A Dream Like A Dream” was supposed to be large, there were pressures on progress, the experience for the whole group was basically demonic scheduling.
For example, for 22 Apr Charity Show, the schedule for the actors that day was like this —
10:30 to 11:30 Actors and actresses would set of from their hotels to the theater for make up and costume;
12:30 Lunch;
12:30 Microphone testing;
13:10 Warm up;
13:30 Audience entry;
14:00 Start of Charity Show.
After nearly 8 hours of performance, when the actors were having their media session it was already 30 minutes past midnight.
Everyday they worked for around 12 hours, that would be the normal hours for the group for the month, during practice they did not wear their make up and costume, but they still had to set out by 12:00, practice starts 13:00, 17:00 was dinner, 18:00 was practice again, and they end at 22:00.
“This time round we really went for it, we didn’t work this hard previously, because we changed very few people then, we could probably get to the practice at 2pm,” Chen Limei said.
The tight rehearsal schedule was a challenge physically to the actors, as they practiced day and night everyday, even Huang Lu felt lost once.
“Because we would be acting the same thing everyday, everyday when you went in, it was day, but when you left, it was night, that period of time I really craved a normal life. There was once we were video conferencing with Teacher Lai, I just said that after this play, I suddenly feel that plays, movies weren’t that important, what’s important was our real life, I especially wanted to experience communicating with people, the feeling of being with family, friends and loved ones.
When you filmed dramas, you would still be outside, after you knock off you could be in touch with a more realistic life. When I was in the same play group as Zhang Ruoyun, we practiced in Beijing, everyday we practiced for around 3 hours, we could still meet friends in the afternoon and night, but this play was concentrated practice, when we left it would already be midnight.”
Wang Keran could foresee, that actors would experience this type of lethargy, so the arrangement from the very beginning was that after the 17 days of practice, the group would briefly rest for a period of time, until a week before the Wuhan Show, where he would recall them.
This method of working was not easily seen in plays, but to actors, this was a good time to rest and digest.
“The first day we returned, Keran said that was the best time I’ve acted with Xiao Zhan,” Huang Lu said. “Perhaps in-between I had time to digest, get in touch with real life, and had a new understanding.”
In comparison with “A Dream Like A Dream” from 8 years ago, besides the changes in actors, this year’s Yanghua version also shortened the script by around 15 minutes or so, without affecting the foundation of the script.
The adjustment was mainly on the pace of the actors. For example, at the end of the upper half, the housekeeper of the castle would talk about the past of Baron and Gu Xianglan, it used to use a slow and narrative tone, Wang Keran felt that it was not right, “This type of expression seemed to cause Grandpa, who just arrived at Shanghai, to seem unfamiliar with his surroundings, but in fact, Grandpa was very familiar with the castle, he could have returned frequently, like the feeling of a tour guide,” so he adjusted the tone and pace, and made the play richer and more layered.
Every improvement in detail, came from written notes from everyday.
When rehearsing, both directors would sit in the middle of the lotus pond, with a small table, and a faint table lamp, the actors would be acting while the directors discover problems and mark it in the script, or write furiously on white paper, after the end of a day’s rehearsal, the paper would be littered with over 200 to 300 notes.
After the rehearsal ends, actors would sit together in the lotus pond and listen to the directors reading the notes one by one, every actor would record down their respective portions.
Xiao Zhan’s phone memo was full of everyday’s notes, for example there were around 10 notes for 19 Apr, Xiao Zhan’s note taking method was simple and concise, note down the scene, or a point, with the remarks of watch out for emotion or pace.
In Zhang Liang’s memory, with regards to his notes, there were up to 20 notes a day, but later on as the problems lessened, the notes also reduced.
Director Chen Limei said, some actors would be confused, why were there always 200 to 300 new notes everyday during the note session, did that mean that they had not improved, but actually everyone was getting better on the basis that they were already getting better.
There was a process in practicing, at the start you might not have memorized all the lines, that note would be about lines, when the lines passed, it could have been about wrong position or movement, at the last part when the acting was getting better, I might notice intricate details such as costume, hairstyle, which you needed to notice carefully. Every stage had its own set of problems discovered, only when you walked from Step 1 to Step 2 that I can see the problems of the current step, otherwise my focus would not be that.”
For example, on the last day before the official show, the note for Xiao Zhan became “the singing before the curtain call, stand slightly westwards” this type of small details.
After experiencing the full dress rehearsal of 18, 19 and 20 Apr, the last day of rehearsal became “note rehearsal”, that is to repeatedly rehearse based on the problems in the notes so as to affirm the scenes that could easily cause issues, including the group scene at Tianxian Court, the scenes between Baron and Young Xianglan, etc. For Xiao Zhan and Huang Lu, the scene they rehearsed was the propless scene around the staircase, which needed to take note of the eye contact as they two of them went up and down the stairs, entering by pushing the door.
After the premiere on 22nd ended, the notes continued, so as to have new improvements for the consecutive shows.
Idealism
After the full dress rehearsal ended on 19 Apr, all of the actors gathered backstage, surrounding the directors, quietly standing, it seemed like a special ceremony.
For the new actors who joined this year, this was their first time witnessing this ceremony, but to the actors who had been with “A Dream Like A Dream” before, this had already became a habit.
Director Chen Limei introduced that this ending ceremony was called “Echo”, it was a habit from Lai Shengchuan — a habit that existed since the first premiere in 2013, “When we finish a show, and gain the applause from our audiences, as well as new empathy for our roles, we must return this feelings out, give them to more people, you can imagine that there was a large crowd of people, we would send out these blessings and share them.”
After “A Dream Like A Dream” came to Mainland China, it had always been well acclaimed, it used to show in Beijing and another specific city. Starting the 9 Cities Tour, especially adding the Wuhan Charity Show, was also a form of “Echo”, to share this play with even more audiences.
2 years ago, in Chongqing Theatre, Wang Keran came up with the idea to get more people to understand theater, experience theater. He started conceptualizing the 9th Anniversary 9 Cities Tour for “A Dream Like A Dream”.
When they heard of this plan, Chen Limei and Zhang Rui thought it was an impossible wish.
“Because ‘A Dream Like A Dream’ was such a large play, we would actually lose money by doing a tour. Such a big group, there’s about 130 people in the group, so many people’s living expenditures, including putting up the set for each location, it takes a week to put it up, only for a few shows.
Until the start of last year, Keran told us that we would still do it, I said we really had to do it? How could we do this in the pandemic? Last year he said that we could definitely do it the next year. This might had to do with his view of life, he would do what he set out to do, just like then when he did his first play, he sold 4 houses.”
In comparison with previous “A Dream Like A Dream”, the investment of this tour was obviously bigger. More touring cities meant that there was more costs with transfer of set, when they rehearsed in Tangshan it was not as good as Beijing, all the actors had to be in Tangshan with their living expenditures.
On the other hand, the seats in the theaters were fixed, there’s a ceiling to the ticket prices, in the face that it was not profitable, Wang Keran included a not-for-sale charity show, “The cost is too high, after completing the charity show, we basically have no profits for this stop,” Wang Keran said.
Early last year during the pandemic period, Wang Keran already thought of doing a charity show in Wuhan.
Then, he spoke on the phone with the person in-charge of the theater, and asked about the situation in Wuhan, “He had always stuck to Wuhan, and told me that if you really cared about us, then you should bring your best show over, I asked which one did you mean? He said ‘A Dream Like A Dream’. I just felt that if ‘A Dream Like A Dream’ did not come, it would not fully express our special respect for Wuhan, and we would do a charity show, free.”
The actors had the same idealism.
Wang Keran said, theater would definitely be tough, the rehearsal time was long, and while they would perform for 3 days in every stop, they had to allocate 1 week for practice, a popular artist’s time would be calculated in days, but they were willing to allocate their schedule for the play.
Sun Zhongyi, who played roles such as the old housekeeper and professor, was one of the core actors for Yanghua Theatre, he was given the rare opportunity for a lead role in a movie, it was very important to him, but the schedule collided with one of the shows for “A Dream Like A Dream”, and for the play, he gave up this rare opportunity.
Plays do not earn as much as dramas and movies, no matter how popular the celebrity is, the profits from plays will never match up with the value of the drama, an actor’s rehearsal fee for “A Dream Like A Dream” is 100RMB a day, but all of the actors cooperated seriously.
Huang Lu said, sometimes we would joke that we “missed money making opportunities”, but everyone felt that this was especially fine, it was rare that we had a whole year to focus on doing one thing, the period where we practiced in Tangshan was very much like return to school.
“Everyone basically didn’t come here for money,” Huang Lu said, she viewed “A Dream Like A Dream” as a rare opportunity, it was a training for acting, also like a chance for self improvement.
Every actor gave their best performance.
Newly added actress for Young Gu Xianglan, Ge Xinyi, worked hard to match her senior; seasoned actress Feng Xianzhen controlled her character with grace and power, all 3 Gu Xianglan had an overall soul; Zhang Liang performed a Baron who was different from Jin Shijie’s version, but it was still accurate and layered; Fu Xing as the representative of the original group, became the foundation, their steady and down-to-earth performance assisted every new actor in building up their steady and accurate system of performance.
After performing for 9 years, Xu Qing had already embodied the blood and soul of Gu Xianglan, she also followed the progress of the group, and participated in all of the practices. Wang Keran expressed his thanks to Xu Qing once in Tangshan, “I say I really thank you for appearing in the practice, because your every practice would always accurately complete every detail, even if it was the most basic practice, you always put your heart to it, never held back, completely constructing the character.”
Xu Qing constantly improved her performance, frequently discussing how to handle every word with Wang Keran, for example after Baron had his car accident, Gu Xianglan would run up hurriedly to the police to say “I saw your incompetence” that kind of transition scenes, she would repeatedly try different expressions, after 9 years of “A Dream Like A Dream”, she is still pondering over it repeatedly, searching for the best method to handle every detail.
During the rehearsal in Wuhan, Yuli Studio also witnessed how Xu Qing gave all of her emotions in every rehearsal, especially the important scene where Gu Xianglan took off her Cheongsam and walked through the lotus pond in sleeping garments, everytime Xu Qing finished that performance, her eyes would be filled with tears.
Xu Qing told Wang Keran one sentence later, and hoped that he would share that with the new actors, “Just tell them this point, 1 minute onstage, 9 years of effort offstage.”
Theater people always had this persistence in idealism and passion for the stage, with so much interest in “A Dream Like A Dream” this time round, Wang Keran hoped that with this play, more audiences would understand plays and love plays.
He especially prepared a live broadcast after the charity show ended, so that people beyond that 1200 audiences could see “A Dream Like A Dream”, hear the words from the actors’ hearts, he hoped that the other actors besides Xu Qing and Xiao Zhan would also be noticed.
“I know that the rules of news broadcast, if it wasn’t live broadcast, you would definitely cut away the people who weren’t important, right, but I hoped that everybody could see everyone’s effort. Xu Qing, Xiao Zhan, they were also very happy to have this method, I think that this is also a faith in collaboration equality built upon plays for them.”
“A Dream Like A Dream” would continue to tour 9 cities, Wang Keran hoped that through this play, it would encourage more youths to enter theaters, “I had this thought a long time ago, I just needed to find the right opportunity. For all of our lives we had hoped that plays would have more influence, could have more people entering theaters, if this worked out, then actors and actresses such as Xu Qing, Xiao Zhan, Zhang Liang etc, would have great contribution.”
Thanks for sharing the translation! This is such an extensive interview.